So, here's the Fox Nation headline. Because sometimes all it takes is the headline:
Fox dus newz gud
Yes, that is the actual Fox Nation headline used. The story itself is an exploration of how Americans are being required to follow all these damni Iraq visa laws and stuff, as if they have forgotten that we
own their sorry asses and will continue to do so for the indefinite future. The first part of that was the original story as reported by the
New York Times: Fox News had to spice it up a bit with that second implication so that their audience would not miss the very, very obvious point of how damn
ungrateful Iraq was for even subjecting American contractors to any laws at all.
Iraqi authorities have detained a few hundred foreign contractors in recent weeks, industry officials say, including many Americans who work for the United States Embassy, in one of the first major signs of the Iraqi government’s asserting its sovereignty after the American troop withdrawal last month.
The detentions have occurred largely at the airport in Baghdad and at checkpoints around the capital after the Iraqi authorities raised questions about the contractors’ documents, including visas, weapons permits and authorizations to drive certain routes. Although no formal charges have been filed, the detentions have lasted from a few hours to nearly three weeks.
The actual problem seems to stem primarily from a deep-seated distrust of foreign contractors (yes, yes, go figure). This has led in turn to visa complications, detentions and threatened expulsions. But I think only Fox News has a true, conservative handle on why all this might be going on and what to do about it: It's because Iraq is ungrateful. Why, those twerps are insisting that we follow their laws. Are they insane? Don't they remember how we bombed the holy loving freedom into them? If that's not a ticket to legal immunity, golly, I just don't know what would be.
(As an added bonus, let us take a moment to reflect that the issues are over Iraqis being suspicious of Americans, leading to tighter visa restrictions, a lot of hassles at the airport, "indefinite" detention of suspects, repeated interrogations and paperwork that, no matter how well done, always seems to need to be examined just one more time. Can you imagine if Americans did that to Middle Eastern guys at our airports? Wow, I bet we all totally effing can.)
I can't wait to hear how the brain trust at Fox suggests we solve this problem. I expect we should invade again, and keep doing it until Iraq is properly "grateful" to us.